Seven minors were hospitalized with injuries late Saturday night after a mass shooting broke out in downtown Indianapolis, police said.
The children and teenagers, who were between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, each sustained gunshot wounds in the shooting, which happened just after 11 p.m. local time outside of the city’s Circle Centre Mall. CBS affiliate WTTV shared images from the scene.
No suspects have been arrested, but investigators believe more than one weapon was used to carry out the shooting, according to the Indianapolis Metro Police Department. A police report filed after the incident identified four boys and three girls as victims, all of whom were stable when Indianapolis Deputy Police Chief Tanya Terry gave preliminary details about the incident at a briefing early Sunday morning.
Police said they initially responded after patrol officers in the downtown area heard several shots being fired nearby. They found six minors, among a larger group of kids, suffering from injuries consistent with gunshot wounds. An emergency medical services crew transported all of them to a hospital for treatment. One of the victims’ conditions was critical at the time of transport, but the classification was updated and that person is now stable. The other five victims were stable when they were transported.
A seventh victim, who police determined had been shot during the same downtown incident, was treated as a walk-in at a different hospital. That person’s condition was listed as stable too, according to Indianapolis police.
The shooting came as Indianapolis continues to grapple with a steady rise in gun violence. A report by the Indianapolis Star last year found that homicides in the city, which were largely committed using firearms, had increased by 85% over the previous decade and a half.
Terry touched on that during Sunday’s briefing.
“Once again, we have a situation in which young people are resolving conflict with firearms, and it has to stop,” said the deputy police chief. Terry noted that the department has already put resources toward efforts “to address these juvenile crowds before they get started” and will continue to do that with the hopes of “preventing this kind of crime.”
The deputy chief also called on parents for help.
“We would ask for our parents to get involved in what their children are out doing, especially at these hours of the evening,” said Terry. “This was 11:30 at night, the evening right before Sunday, Easter. So if you don’t know where your 12-year-old is, I think that should be a priority for you.”
An investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Police requested that anyone with information contact Detective Albert Teaters at the department’s homicide office.
Emily Mae Czachor
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
INDIANAPOLIS — A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that transgender students in Indiana must have access to the bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identities.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Tuesday upheld a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana last year ordering the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville and the Vigo County Schools to give the transgender students such access.
Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, issued a statement welcoming the appeals court ruling.
“Students who are denied access to the appropriate facilities are caused both serious emotional and physical harm as they are denied recognition of who they are. They will often avoid using the restroom altogether while in school,” Falk said. “Schools should be a safe place for kids and the refusal to allow a student to use the correct facilities can be extremely damaging.”
Martinsville Superintendent Eric Bowlen said in an email “we are reviewing the decision and evaluating available options.”
The Vigo County School Corp. said in a statement it was reviewing the decision with legal counsel.
The court opinion said the U.S. Supreme Court will likely step in to hear the case, or cases similar to it.
“Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far,” the opinion said.
Although Indiana doesn’t have any current laws restricting bathroom access for transgender students, nearly a dozen other states have enacted such laws, including North Dakota, Florida and Kansas.
The case originally required John R. Wooden Middle School in Martinsville to allow a seventh-grader identified only as A.C. to have access to the restroom while litigation continued.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt in Indianapolis cited Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in her ruling at the time. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
“The overwhelming majority of federal courts — including the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit — have recently examined transgender education-discrimination claims under Title IX and concluded that preventing a transgender student from using a school restroom consistent with the student’s gender identity violates Title IX. This Court concurs,” Pratt wrote.
The ACLU and Indiana Legal Services sued the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville in December 2021 on behalf of the transgender student.
Indianapolis — Indiana’s six abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions ahead of the state’s near-total abortion ban officially taking effect and as a petition pends before the state’s high court asking it to keep the ban on hold while legal action continues, clinic officials said Tuesday.
Planned Parenthood’s four Indiana abortion clinics stopped performing abortions Monday in accordance with state guidance that providers received in July alerting them that on or around Tuesday, abortions would become illegal in Indiana in clinic settings “with really very, very limited exceptions,” said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of the Planned Parenthood division that includes Indiana.
Indiana’s two other abortion clinics have also stopped providing abortions, with one calling it “a dark day for Indiana.”
Indiana’s Republican-backed ban will end most abortions in the state, even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Although Planned Parenthood’s four Indiana abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions, Gibron said its 11 health centers across the state continue offering a wide range of services including emergency contraception and birth control, even as the group works to help Hoosiers obtain out-of-state abortions.
“Planned Parenthood will not be intimidated and bullied and we will not be silenced,” she said at a news conference outside one of the group’s clinics that provided abortions in Indianapolis.
Rebecca Gibron, CEO of the Planned Parenthood division that includes Indiana, speaks during a news conference outside a Planned Parenthood clinic on Aug. 1, 2023, in Indianapolis.
Darron Cummings / AP
“When radical extremists on the Supreme Court overturned the 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion last year, they plunged our nation into a health care crisis,” she said, according to CBS Indianapolis affiliate WTTV. “Until today, Indiana was the region’s pivotal state for preserving abortion access for people in the region. Our appointments were booked out for months but now extremists are taking away abortion care in Indiana.”
Indiana’s ban will eliminate the licenses for all seven abortion clinics in the state – one of which closed in June – and ban most abortions, even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. It includes exceptions allowing abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest before 10 weeks post-fertilization. It also allows abortions up to 20 weeks to protect the life and physical health of the mother or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
Abortions performed under any other circumstances would result in criminal penalties for the physicians involved and could result in the revocation of their medical licenses, WTTV reported.
Before Indiana’s ban was passed, the state’s laws generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, representing Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinic operators, challenged the ban’s constitutionality. But in a June 30 ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court found that the ban doesn’t violate the state constitution. Its ruling struck down a preliminary injunction that had kept the ban on hold, although that ruling has yet to be certified to officially take effect.
On Monday – the last day for it to do so – the ACLU of Indiana filed a petition for a rehearing with the high court asking it to keep the ban on hold while it pursues a narrower preliminary injunction in a trial court to address the scope of the ban’s exemption allowing women facing serious health risks to obtain abortions.
That filing delays the certification of the court’s ruling while it considers whether to grant or deny that petition, said court spokesperson Kathryn Dolan. It’s unclear how long it may take the high court to decide the matter. But the state attorney general’s office, which had 15 days to respond to the rehearing request, filed it Tuesday, urging the court to “promptly deny plaintiffs’ groundless and exceedingly calculated rehearing petition” and calling it “a transparent attempt” to delay certification of the court’s ruling.
Attorney General’s office spokeswoman Katlyn Milligan said in a statement Tuesday that, “On the eve of Indiana’s pro-life law going into effect, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood made a desperate attempt to prevent Indiana from enforcing our own law. We responded to this filing immediately and are now waiting for the Court to rule.”
Planned Parenthood ended abortion services at its four clinics Monday in light of the state’s guidance and the uncertainty over when the court will certify its abortion ban ruling, Gibron said.
“The reality is that it can happen at any point. The Supreme Court could certify it this (Monday) afternoon,” she said.
Gibron said Indiana’s abortion ban will “target Hoosiers of color, indigenous communities and those already marginalized by our health care system.”
Indiana’s two other abortion clinics, which aren’t operated by Planned Parenthood and are both located in Indianapolis, have also stopped providing abortion care.
In a statement, Clinic for Women owner LaDonna Prince said the clinic ended abortions on Monday and called it “a dark day for Indiana and for the country.”
The state’s other abortion clinic, Women’s Med, stopped providing abortions on Friday, a representative said Tuesday.
Although Planned Parenthood’s Indiana abortion clinics are no longer performing abortions, Gibron said a “patient navigation team” is working to help patients get out-of-state abortions. That includes helping schedule appointments and finding ways to help them pay the costs of traveling out of state.
Adjacent Illinois and Michigan – states where abortion remains legal – will most likely become the destinations for many Indiana residents seeking out-of-state abortion care, said Gibron, who is CEO for Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky.
Planned Parenthood of Illinois had prepared for years for the possibility of Roe v. Wade falling, and it opened clinics near the Indiana and Wisconsin borders in 2018 and 2020 in anticipation of those states restricting access to abortion, said Kristen Schultz, the affiliate’s chief strategy and operations officer.
She said the number patients from Indiana nearly doubled after the state’s ban briefly went into effect last September and that traffic is expected to rise again starting this week. Schultz said more doctors, advanced nurse practitioners and medical assistants have been hired to accommodate the expected surge.
“The demand has increased, the challenges have increased when patients show up at our doors having traveled eight or ten or 12 hours. That’s an increased burden on the patient. And our staff really feel that,” she said.
Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting at a street party in Muncie, Indiana, that left one person dead and 17 others wounded.
John L. Vance, 36, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon and preliminarily charged with “several felonies,” a spokesperson for the city of Muncie said in a statement. The statement did not specify what the charges were or how many Vance was facing.
The arrest was being forwarded to the Delaware County Prosecutor’s office for review and consideration of additional charges, the statement said.
“This doesn’t solve the pain, but we hope this can move our community towards some closure,” Mayor Dan Ridenour said at a vigil Tuesday.
The shooting early Sunday unfolded at a block party attended by hundreds of revelers as police were calling the venue’s owner to shut down the gathering, authorities said Monday.
The shooting killed 30-year-old Joseph E. Bonner III, whom Muncie Police Chief Nathan Sloan said was among those attending the large party in the city about 60 miles northeast of Indianapolis.
Sloan said police were aware that the owner of a business that periodically rents out space for events was hosting a block party that got “out of control,” with between 500 and up to 1,000 in attendance. Photos of the scene showed police tags marking what appeared to be dozens of bullets on the street.
Sloan said police were not at the scene at the time of the shooting just after 1 a.m. Sunday, but they were trying to get the business owner to end the party.
“We made a phone call to the owner and asked him to get things shut down. The streets were packed. Before we could make contact and get something done, before we could get that shut down, the gunfire erupted,” Sloan said during a news conference Monday.
Police asked for any witnesses to the shooting or people with pictures or video of the incident to contact the Muncie Police Department, he said. Sloan said some people at the scene refused to tell officers what had happened.
He declined to provide details of the investigation, including how many people may have fired weapons but described a scene of chaos as officers and first responders arrived at the location on Muncie’s east side.
“Our people were applying tourniquets, administering first aid, providing CPR. And they were rushing people to the hospital in our police cars because we didn’t have time to wait,” Sloan said.
Ridenour said the shooting had left the community “shaken to the core by violence,” and he choked up repeatedly during the news conference.
After the shooting, police had to separate people in a Muncie hospital’s parking lot who were arguing and officers had to clear a path at the hospital’s entrance for anyone needing medical attention to enter, Criswell said.
Criswell said that two of the people wounded in Sunday’s shooting were minors and that a nineteenth person who was injured may have been struck by a car.
A “mass shooting” at a large street party in Indiana early Sunday morning left one person dead, police said. A hospital said 19 people were being treated for injuries at its facility.
Muncie police responded to multiple reports of gunfire on the city’s east side just after 1 a.m., The Star Press reported. Police said in a news release that there was no active threat to the community and that “multiple” victims were injured, including some critically.
There was no word on whether anyone was arrested or was being sought.
“Due to the number of victims and nature of the incident, multiple agencies were contacted to assist,” Muncie police said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Many police officers from the nearby town of Eaton were among those who provided assistance, according to a post on the department’s Facebook page. Eaton Police Chief Jay Turner called the incident a “mass shooting.”
Police didn’t say how many people were injured, but officials at Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie told The Associated Press that 19 victims were treated in their emergency department for injuries related to the shooting, and 13 remained at the hospital in stabilized condition Sunday morning. Criswell said some victims sustained critical injuries and were transferred by medical helicopter to other facilities.
CBS Indianapolis affiliate WTTV reported that a witness at the hospital described chaos at the emergency department chaos, with more than 100 people descending on the facility — many of whom were victims brought by private vehicles.
Delaware County Coroner Gavin Greene identified the man who died as 30-year-old Joseph E. Bonner III, The Star Press reported.
Muncie police said in the Facebook statement that, “We are heartbroken to learn of this terrible incident, and our deepest condolences go to the families of the young man who was killed and everyone who was injured.”
WTTV quotes a witness who claimed his nephew was the block party’s disc jockey as saying, “Stranger comes up and decides to take it personal on somebody he knows in the crowd. And you can’t fight against an AR. He let loose in the crowd. Everywhere in the crowd.”
According to the station, Delaware County Prosecutor Eric Hoffman said in a statement that, “There are far too many guns on the street, and I certainly question the wisdom of someone having a huge outdoor party with several hundred people, including juveniles, carrying on into the early morning hours. Let’s take a dose of reality. This is not the Vegas strip or Times Square. This is a residential neighborhood.”
But, notes WTTV, the Muncie Homecoming Festival committee issued a statement noting that the street party where the shooting happened wasn’t part of the official MHF celebration going on this week.
Several dogs set for K9 training die in Indiana after air conditioning fails in vehicle
Several dogs set for K9 training die in Indiana after air conditioning fails in vehicle
02:10
Multiple dogs being taken from Chicago, Illinois, to a K-9 training facility in Michigan City, Indiana, died on Thursday after the air conditioning unit in a vehicle cargo area they were being held in failed. Authorities did not specify exactly how many of the dogs died in the incident.
Nineteen German Shepherds were being transported from O’Hare International Airport when the driver of the vehicle they were riding in was caught in a two-hour traffic delay, according to Indiana’s Lake Station Police Department.
After the unit failed, the temperatures in the cargo area began to rise, causing some of the dogs to go into heat-related medical distress.
The driver was alerted by some of the dogs’ barking. He stopped the vehicle in Lake Station which is located about 40 miles southeast of Chicago, and entered the cargo area, police said. He saw the dogs in distress and began to remove them inside crates.
Lake Station fire and police were called. Police said the scene “took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
“This is truly devastating,” said Jenny Webber, executive director of the Humane Society of Hobart, Indiana.
Webber, who also responded to the scene, claimed that protocol was not followed.
“I don’t think any veterinarian would’ve signed off on their health certificate given the temperature and the exposure that those pets would’ve been under,” she said…”I’m not even quite sure if they had any of that paperwork or any of the documentation they should’ve had.”
Weber told CBS Chicago that four of the dogs were eventually transported to the Hobart Animal Clinic.
“The driver left with four, and the rest were deceased, and he left with the deceased animals, and four alive animals that I recommended be hospitalized immediately,” she said.
She added that the surviving dogs appeared to be in critical condition.
They were alert but “clearly suffering from heat stroke,” she said.
Police said that investigators do not believe this was not an act of animal cruelty or neglect, but a mechanical failure of the air conditioning unit.
Webber said she is waiting for answers.
“It’s very confusing, very disheartening, and I would like a call from the chief of police immediately.”
